Pete showed up with a sketch of backing vocals for "Nothing Fills The Hole", which is about as near to Marvin Gaye as we're ever likely to get (unless we cover Abraham, Martin and John again..).

This morning we were working a little more on the arrangement of the title track - "Happiness Is The Road". Digital technology allows us to take entire sections of music and whizz them about from one end of the song to the other, in case it makes more musical or lyrical sense that way round. This is very handy because sometimes it's just too hard to imagine these things - you have to hear them. So we've been doing a little of this, and then we've been in the studio trying to write new chords for a more cinematic section of the song.

We've decided we're happy with the new ideas so Pete is currently in the control room putting some new bass on the song. Tomorrow morning Steve will play guitar overdubs and, in the evening, I'll do a few lead vocal takes and maybe work together with Mike on backing vocal ideas.

It's all go, and it's sounding fabulous. "The Man From The Planet Marzipan" is sounding v. brilliant also, and The Count (Ian M) telephoned me over the weekend to enthuse over his current favourite "Asylum Satellite 1".

The cake is out of the oven and we're queuing up to ice it.. mmm..

h

Upcoming Marillion Live Shows

We have also started announcing tour dates for the 'Happiness Is The Road' album tour in 2008/2009 and many of the shows are already on sale! More confirmed dates will be posted as and when they are confirmed.

If you can't wait for the album tour, we are performing at various festivals throughout the summer - our first one (The Acoustic Festival of Britain) is only a few weeks away now!

As a warm-up to this show, we will be playing an exclusive hour-long acoustic set at the Hard Rock Cafe in London on Thursday May 22nd. An EXTREMELY LIMITED number of tickets are still available - Tickets are priced £20 and all profits will go to Childline (www.childline.co.uk)

For COMPLETE details about ALL upcoming live dates and ticket ordering information visit www.marillion.com/tour

Finally a reminder about the TWO Marillion Weekends in 2009, in Holland and Canada - both are scheduled to go on sale next week, and full details can be found at www.marillionweekend.com